Catholic activist to voters: Follow Jesus

When voting this year, don’t just cast your ballot for the best candidate, but vote for the candidate who will preserve family, faith and religious freedom for all.

That was the message delivered last night by Brian Burch, founder and CEO of the nonpartisan CatholicVote.org, to about 50 people — including Marty Lamb, Republican candidate for state representative — at the John Boyle O’Reilly Knights of Columbus hall in Westboro.

“We need to recommit to renew and reinvigorate our faith,” Mr. Burch said. “The message we are sending out is not who to vote for, but at the end of the day, the message we want to deliver is two words: Follow Jesus.”

Mr. Burch’s discussion was one in a series of lectures hosted by the Knights of Columbus since 2010 “for Catholics and others of faith to learn more about what happens in our country in matters of morality,” said lectures organizer Victor J. Melfa Sr. He added that the lack of morality and faith in the country is a reason for the problems ranging from poverty to foreign affairs.

Mr. Burch is on a 75-day leave of absence from the organization he founded to work in Boston on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign by reaching out to Catholic voters. Ms. Burch subsequently canceled all of his speaking engagements, save for last night’s.

CatholicVote.Org, based in Chicago, was founded to educate and advocate for people of the faith, and direct political action on their behalf in the technological age. CatholicVote.org aims to motivate Catholics through modern media, and in 2008, produced a three-minute long viral video that had more than 2.5 million hits.

By spreading the group’s message through video, “we hoped that it would do what a movie trailer does — that it interests you, that it mesmerizes you and that it inspires you,” Mr. Burch said.

“That is something that transcends politics. Neither Mitt Romney nor Paul Ryan are going to get me to Heaven, but my Catholic faith will,” Mr. Burch said. The supportive crowd often nodded in agreement or mumbled soft “amens” as he spoke.

Mr. Burch quoted heavily from a speech by Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput delivered in June at the launch of “Fortnight for Freedom.” Mr. Burch highlighted Archbishop Chaput’s five main points: Religious freedom is the cornerstone of the American experience; freedom of religion is more than freedom of worship; the threat against freedom of religion is not imagined, but real and immediate; people must work hard to keep religious liberty or lose it; and religious freedom depends “on the vividness of our own Christian faith — how deeply we believe it and how honestly we live it.”

Mr. Burch said America was founded on religious freedom and Judeo-Christian beliefs, and religious freedom is not just defined as freedom to worship within the four walls of a church, despite some pending legislation in parts of the country that aim to keep it there.

“Catholicism — our faith — is not a Sunday morning religion; it is a Sunday through Saturday, 24-hour seven-day religion,” Mr. Burch said.

Religious freedom is as much about praying as it is about evangelizing, he said. “The church cannot remain on the sidelines and cannot keep the light of Christ under a bushel basket.”

Mr. Burch said the goal of CatholicVote.org was to build an army of political activist and evangelists, “to do for the Catholic voter what the NRA does for gun owners” by inspiring and engaging Catholic voters.

“If the Pope had a Super PAC, this is what it would look like,” Mr. Burch said.

Mr. Burch said religious freedom, however, isn’t being threatened by politicians or those who disagree with the faith, but the real enemy of religious freedom is from within — those who live their faith tepidly and by routine alone.

Mr. Burch said the church is renewing itself but is still suffering from the sex abuse scandal and from conflict within and from those who are hesitant to publicly live their faith.